Pizza makes me happy

Today I did not like Korea very much.

Lately I haven't really been doing my hair or makeup because it's so humid. But today I decided to look nice and do both. Then I walked out the door and saw my bus leaving the bus stop. It had come at least 5 minutes early, and I had to stand outside for a long time and wait for a different one, then walk a little way because it didn't take me all the way to school. So my hair was flat and my makeup was gone. Bummer.

Next Yuri told me that she would be teaching our classes alone. It bothers me when she does this because she only speaks Korean, which totally defeats the purpose of English class. Then she told me that next week I have to teach 4 lessons and I can't use the books - I have to create everything. Fine, but annoying because she's probably known about this for a while and waited until the last minute to tell me.

For lunch we had this soup/noodle dish that I really hate. It's basically very long, very thin noodles with some vegetables and broth. And I don't know why, but it always makes me gag. It's not spicy - it's actually pretty bland, but my body does not like it. Plus its tricky to eat because the noodles are so long, and they're slippery because they're in broth, and you have to use your chopsticks. After about 10 minutes my bowl was still very full, and Yuri was completely finished. I have no idea how she got all that food into her stomach.

This afternoon I went to JangSeangPo, and Jenny told me that the vice principal is very crabby this week. I don't talk to her much because her English isn't great, but she's always very sweet and kind, so this is totally out of character for her. She yelled at 2 teachers and told the head teacher that nobody is working hard enough. She made the whole staff stay at work until 10:00 last night. Next week Jenny and I were supposed to come for 3 days and basically have time to plan, which I desperately need. I have to teach classes every day for 5 weeks this summer and I have to create EVERYTHING. This is a ton of work to get done in not a lot of time. Well, vice principal has decided that Jenny and I will each teach classes during those 3 days. She didn't tell us which kids we'll be teaching or what she wants us to do, so this is 3 more days of lessons that I have to create and I literally don't even know where to start. Koreans do things very last minute. I've come to expect it, but this is so much last minute stuff all at the same time and I can't take it right now.

I also couldn't find Sam when I got to school. Normally he's in his office and I go say hi so we know each other is there, and talk about anything that needs to be talked about. He finally showed up for our first class 10 minutes late (which is kind of a big deal when class is only 40 minutes), had to go to a "meeting" during our second class (they use the term meeting so loosely. It can literally mean anything that gets you out of work), and came 10 minutes late to our last class. Then, when that class was over, he kept half the kids in the classroom and lectured them very angrily in Korean for about 10 minutes. I stood there and pretended like I knew what was going on. When the kids left I asked him what that was all about and he said "Nothing." I said "It was obviously something. Tell me what's going on." And again he said "No, it was nothing." This makes me so mad. Those are my students and I have a right to know if they did something wrong. It's not fair that I can't know what's going on in my own classroom.

So basically work is stressful and frustrating right now. Luckily I had fun dinner plans to cheer me up. We knew there was a Domino's in our area because we've seen the delivery scooters. Tonight we finally found it! And it was so exciting, because it was real pizza. In Korea all pizza will have corn, sweet potato, or mayo on it. Sometimes all 3. Those are not normal pizza ingredients. So we were thrilled to eat real pizza and spend time hanging out. We assumed there would be tables and chairs in the restaurant, and we were wrong. So we took our dinner to Ulsan Grand Park.